Nice or Rough PRINCIPLE #1: Disclosure

But no matter how you slice it, the impact of revealing flaws is surprisingly powerful for such a simple and straightforward strategy.

For instance, let’s say you go to buy a new car and the salesman immediately tells you about the whine in the transmission.

You, on the other hand, don’t hear a thing on the test drive.

Yet the salesman insists it’s there.

And after straining your ears (and having auditory hallucinations) you actually DO hear it.

You’re stunned that he actually pointed it out to you, even after he tells you about the research he did on that model that shows the transmission runs between 75 and 100,000 miles after the whine is first heard.

And how do you react after that amazing display of sales craft?

Like putty in his hands.

Your B.S. detector has been tucked in and put to bed.

Because anyone who’d be THAT honest, has gotta be on the up and up.

So is that a nice or rough principle?

Depends on how you look at it.

If it’s calculated to hide more serious problems… I’d classify it more on the rough side.

If it’s honest, even though you understand the impact of using this kind of disclosure, you’re leaning more toward nice.

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

But here’s the thing.

Knowing what you’re doing and WHY you’re doing it is more important than anything.

It’s also why it’s critical you have a checklist for your copywriting and infuse it with layered and integrated persuasion, or hire someone who knows what they’re doing.

Disclosure works because it assuages our fears in a world where most of us are always looking for ‘the catch’.

If you reveal ‘the catch’ up front, you allow your prospects to trust you.

It lets them relax and take in what you’re presenting.

Which means they’re more likely to become a long-term customer (more on this in #3).

And is it a nice and easy, or rough principle?

Depends on how you use it, but give me YOUR comments below.

Nice or Rough PRINCIPLE #2: The Dangerous Power of Storytelling

You can’t throw a rock without hitting a marketer preaching about the selling power of storytelling.

They’re right, of course, IF the story captures your reader’s immediately, is well crafted, gripping, cohesive, believable, creates an emotional bond with your prospect or customer, and furthers the sale.

And if you have any doubt that you MUST be great at storytelling, think of the greatest persuasion artists… both positive and negative.

I’ll focus on the negative here, since it’s more sensational, but remember that storytelling works both ways.

For instance, on the negative side there’s Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, and Jim Jones…

… And someone you’ve probably never heard of, but one of the greatest storytellers (and swindlers) of all time.

Recognize him in this pic? I doubt it.

He was operating back in 1822 when he sold “government bonds” to British nobility for his INVENTED country of Poyais, supposedly located off the coast of Honduras.

He even created a constitution, claimed he’d been appointed Cazique (some kind of bogus prince), and produced maps of this non-existent island.

Yet when 200 of the 250 ‘colonists’ DIED after sailing to his fantasy island, Gregor MacGregor was undeterred. He even tried to run the same kind of scam in France, where he was arrested, tried, and acquitted.

Eventually he moved to Venezuela, where he was welcomed as a hero. MacGregor died in Caracas, in 1845, aged 58, and was buried with full military honors in Caracas Cathedral because he spun such an unbelievable story.

The point?

Powerful storytelling is a uber powerful and potentially dangerous tool.

So use it for good… don’t dabble on the dark side.

And if you want to improve your storytelling skills, DON’T pride yourself on reading only business books.

There’s brilliant persuasion going on around you all the time… that you can incorporate into your marketing for FREE!

And just like you can use fire to turn iron into steel or cook up a feast, you can also use it to burn houses down. It’s up to you.

Same rules apply with your marketing.

And just so we’re clear, sometimes you have to burn houses down to make way for something else.

The nice approach isn’t for everyone or even necessarily the ‘best’.

If you’re on trial for a crime you didn’t commit, you’re not looking for a ‘nice’ attorney.

Likewise not everyone responds to the same approach.

Oprah’s hardcore fans aren’t tuning in to Howard Stern and vice versa, but neither is hurting for a way to pay their bills.

It’s not about right and wrong, it’s about who you are, your personality, and your target market.

Your thoughts are welcome in the comments below, so fire away!

Nice or Rough PRINCIPLE #3: Your Sparkling (?) Personality

Anyone can make a sale.

And as you know, the point of the first sale (if you have a real business) is to get a customer.

Then the real question becomes, “Can you KEEP a customer… and for how long?”

Usually, if your products are fabulous, you can keep a customer for a year or two.

But the products by themselves have limited attraction value.

And constantly creating new ones is a challenge.

But when they’re tied to a fascinating personality, customer longevity is multiplied and magnified.

People stay tuned in because they want to know about YOU!

By the way, I give credit to Dan Kennedy, for taking me more deeply into this concept.

By example, Dan says:

“Marvel kicked DC comic’s butt in the marketplace. Started late, zoomed past them. Why? Their characters are much more complex. The Spiderman character, the Daredevil character, the Hulk character – these are much more complex characters. Not so much in the movies you see on the screen or the cartoons you see on Saturday but if you actually read the comic books, these are emotionally complex characters. People essentially have to be into…

“What will this person do next?”

“And if they aren’t interested in what you’re going to do next, you can’t sustain interest in yourself at all.”

Now don’t think this is only for information products.

That’s falling for the old profit killer: “But my business is different.”

With a bit of imagination, you can do this ANYWHERE.

In fact, it’s so important, we’re going to focus on this topic in just a few days, with examples from the media, business, and with practical things you can do.

So stay tuned and watch your emails (or we may have to be a little rough on you).

Nice or Rough PRINCIPLE #4: Specificity

Because people BELIEVE specifics.

And we’ve all heard it from the legendary Zig Ziglar…

“Use meaningful specifics instead of wandering generalities.”

So if you’re talking about how many people attended your seminar, include the number in each profession, the age range, the male to female ratio, etc.

It will not only make for more interesting reading, but give you a BIG jump in believability.

If you’re talking about how many testimonials you have in your files… BE SPECIFIC.

I’ve seen Jay Abraham use exactly this strategy with both his case studies and testimonials.

He’s got massive lists with the actual number at the top.

Something like, “941 Case Studies from 298 Different Professions.”

So there’s a preponderance of proof… and it’s indisputable.

Now go research the facts and figures and use them liberally in your copy.

DON’T use generalities or people will think it’s the usual marketing puffery.

Nice or Rough PRINCIPLE #5: The Intangibles

If you’re an EMAIL ALCHEMY member, you know about the “hot hook extraction worksheet” that identifies the fascinating elements of a product or a business or a person.

Why is this information so important?

To ramp up sales, of course.

Because “the intangibles” are overlooked by most marketers, and yet they can hold the key to astonishing sales.

For instance, do you remember the oft-sighted example of Claude Hopkins and Schlitz beer.

The beer company was suffering at somewhere like #10 in sales in the U.S.

So they called in the brilliant and famous Claude Hopkins to save the day.

Hopkins toured the plant and asked a million questions.

He found that the beer was filtered through white-wood pulp, that every pipe and pump was cleaned twice a day, and that every bottle was cleaned 4 times before being filled.

Plus, the artesian well that provided the water was 4,000 feet deep, even though the brewery was on the shore of then-clean Lake Michigan.

Finally, he went to the lab where the mother yeast was the result of 1,200 experiments, to create superior flavor.

Hopkins was astonished by how fascinating the process was, and asked why Schlitz didn’t say anything about it in their advertising.

They were too close to the situation and said that all beer was basically brewed the same way.

Hopkins replied:

“Yes, but the first one to tell the public about this process will gain a big advantage.”

Then Hopkins created a campaign that told the fascinating and in-depth story of beer brewing, and Schlitz rocketed to #1 in sales in six short months!

It’s what you can do too if you dig deep into your own story.

Because there IS fascinating background and development for ALL products and services that make them much more appealing to your prospects and customers.

By the way, you can download Claude Hopkins’ book, “Scientific Advertising,” at multiple links online, since it’s in the public domain. Here’s one of them:

About Jack Booman

Dr. Jack Booman has been a marketing consultant and copywriter for the last 15 years, primarily in health care (dentistry and chiropractic), commercial real estate, and online business expansion. He’s designed practice-saving campaigns for hundreds of chiropractic clinics, created high-profile dentistry marketing, and commercial real estate campaigns in the Wall Street Journal and Investor’s Business Daily. Dr. Jack is from the U.S. but now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Excellent material and I’ll be doing much more reading about this. Most of the headlines I learned about were “make a big promise.” This approach can do more, I think, and make the promise too, and really engage the audience. My particular area of interest has become theology and there’s plenty of story telling material available, so I’m going to play with that. What I sell is FREE. What they read leads to more and some they can buy. I want to point out one thing to remember. Do your homework before you write. I lately got a sales letter from a man who was telling me “they” found the ONE food that causes cancer. Then he said, “It’s something called……….”glucose.” This IDIOT hadn’t studied anything about glucose, or about physiology. He obviously didn’t know his subject material and I stopped reading immediately. Don’t you make the same mistake, dear readers. sn